After Tanzania’s confirmation of a Marburg virus outbreak, Kenya is on high alert.The Ministry of Health has requested that all visitors arriving from Tanzania be screened at the various points of entry to determine whether they have the virus before entering the nation.

Five people have been confirmed dead and up to eight people have been infected with the virus, according to Tanzania’s Minister of Health Ummy Mwalimu. Benjamin Murkomen, a port health officer in a memo to all surveillance staff and emergency response teams called for enhanced screening as the virus continues to spread in parts of Tanzania.

“This is to notify you that the health authorities in Tanzania on March 17 issued an alert and declared the outbreak of an unnamed epidemic disease considered to be contagious,” Murkomen said.

“The symptoms include fever, vomiting, bleeding from different parts of the body and liver failure. By copy of this memo, you are reminded to enhance screening of travellers who are arriving from this region.” The World Health Organization claims that Marburg belongs to the same family as Ebola.It is a hemorrhagic fever that is very contagious and frequently lethal.People can catch the illness by coming into touch with fruit bats’ droppings and faeces. Men working in mines with bat infestations, for instance, contracted the disease.